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Jay Macpherson
by George J. Dance Canadian | ethnicity = Scottish | citizenship = | education = Ph.D. | alma_mater = Carleton, McGill, University of Toronto | period = | genre = | subject = | movement = | notableworks = The Boatman, Welcoming Disaster | spouse = | partner = | children = | relatives = | influences = | influenced = | awards = Governor General's Award, Levinson Prize | signature = | website = | portaldisp = }} Jean Jay Macpherson (June 13, 1931 - March 21, 2012) was a Canadian poet and academic.Jean O'Grady & Suzanne Marshall, Jean Jay MacPherson, Canadian Encyclopedia, May 28, 2012. Web, Nov. 29, 2014. The Encyclopaedia Britannica calls her "a member of 'the mythopoeic school of poetry,' who expressed serious religious and philosophical themes in symbolic verse that was often lyrical or comic.""Jay Macpherson," Encyclopaedia Britannica, Britannica Online, Web, Apr. 10, 2011. Life Macpherson was born in London, England, in 1931.Jean O'Grady, "Macpherson, Jean Jay," Canadian Encyclopedia (Edmonton: Hurtig, 1988), 1282. She was brought to Newfoundland in 1940 as a 'war guest'. She completed her secondary education at Bishop Spencer College, St. John's, and Glebe Collegiate, Ottawa.Heather Pyrcz, "I'm a Stranger Here Myself: A Digital History of Canadian Poetry", YoungPoets.ca, 2003, Web, Apr. 10, 2011. In 1951 Macpherson earned a B.A. from Carleton College (now Carleton University) in 1951, followed by a year at University College in London. She received a BLS from McGill University, and then completed her M.A. and Ph.D at Victoria College, University of Toronto, both supervised by professor and critic Northrop Frye. Macpherson published poetry in Contemporary Verse in 1949. Her debut collection was published in 1952. In 1954 Macpherson began her own small press, Emblem Books, which published her 2nd volume, O Earth Return. Between 1954 and 1963, Emblem Books published 8 chapbooks featuring the work of Canadian poets, including Dorothy Livesay, Alden Nowlan, and Al Purdy."Macpherson, Jay," Cambridge Guide to Literature in English (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1988), 623.) Macpherson's two earlier volumes were incorporated into The Boatman (1957), a book which "gained her a considerable reputation. Dedicated to Northrop Frye and his wife, the collection reflects Frye's emphasis on the mythic and archetypal properties of poetry." The Boatman won the Governor General's Award in 1958. Macpherson taught English at Victoria College from 1957 until 1996. She became a professor of English in 1974."Jay Macpherson (Jay Jean Macpherson) Biography," Encyclopedia of Literature, 4911, JRank.org, Web, Apr. 10, 2011. Macpherson was "deeply Christian, a Protestant humanist." Her 1982 book The Spirit of Solitude is "a highly regarded study of the elegiac and pastoral traditions from the seventeenth century onward." Writing Macpherson has been described "as a 'mythopoeic' poet – rooted in the teachings of Frye, the archetypes of Carl Jung, and the intensely conservative social vision of T.S. Eliot." Within her work, "recurring themes involve the creation, fall, flood, redemption and the apocalypse." Her interest is in "authentic myth", "the ones that have some imaginative force behind them." In technique, Macpherson has been placed "beside Margaret Avison, P.K. Page, Phyllis Webb, but especially Anne Hébert – particularly in the use of the Gothic and macabre themes and devices." ''The Boatman'' Macpherson's earliest major work, The Boatman (1957), "describes a world where redemption is still possible." Northrop Frye (to whom The Boatman was dedicated) called it the "one good book" of Canadian poetry for that year." He added: "There is little use looking for bad lines or lapses in taste: The Boatman is completely successful within the conventions it adopts, and anyone dissatisfied with the book must quarrel with the conventions. Among these are the use of a great variety of echoes, some of them direct quotations from other poems, and an interest in myth, both Biblical and Classical."Northrop Frye, "Letters in Canada - 1957," The Bush Garden (Toronto:Anansi, 1971, 70-76. The Boatman of the title "is Noah, but both Noah and the ark itself form an allegory for the artist and the artistic experience, the ark representing Jung's collective unconscious." "The creation is inside its creator, and the ark similarly attempts to explain to Noah ... that it is really inside him, as Eve was once inside Adam: When the four quarters shall Turn in and make one whole, Then I who wall your body, Which is to me a soul, Shall swim circled by you And cradled on your tide, Who was not even, not ever, Taken from your side. "As the ark expands into the flooded world, the body of the Biblical leviathan, and the order of nature, the design of the whole book begins to take shape. The Boatman begins with a poem called 'Ordinary People in the Last Days,' a wistful poem about an apocalypse that happens to everyone except the poet, and ends with a vision of a 'Fisherman' who ... catches 'myriad forms,' eats them, drinks the lake they are in, and is caught in his turn by God." ''Welcoming Disaster'' Macpherson's next major work, Welcoming Disaster (1974), "employs more complex forms to pursue its quest for meaning; the poems frequently succeed in maintaining imaginative contact with social reality while extending Macpherson's essential concern with psychological and metaphysical conditions." George Woodcock saw Welcoming Disaster and The Boatman as similar, even complementary: "They are narratives of journeys into spiritual day and night, disguised, no doubt, by all the devices of privacy, but nonetheless derived from true inner experiences." Margaret Atwood emphasized their differences: "If The Boatman is 'classical,' . . . then Welcoming Disaster is, by the same lights, 'romantic': more personal, more convoluted, darker and more grotesque, its rhythms more complex"W.J. Keith, "[http://www.uwo.ca/english/canadianpoetry/cpjrn/vol36/keith.htm Jay Macpherson's Welcoming Disaster: a Reconsideration]," Canadian Poetry: Studies/Documents/Reviews No. 36 (Spring/Summer 1995), UWO, Web, Apr. 12, 2011. "Welcoming Disaster, has the critics baffled. They cannot agree on its proper interpretation - is it a darker, more tragic vision or is the possibility of redemption there?" Suniti Namjoshi saw it as a book about redemption: about the necessity "to hit bottom and then to make the journey up"; "after a descent into the underworld ... it is possible to return to the ordinary world of everyday life". David Bromwich, reviewing th book in Poetry, saw it as even more positive: for him, it "moves from consolation to guilt to terror and finally to a deepened consolation." On the other hand, Lorraine Weir interpreted the book to be saying that the "underworld journey of redemption ... fails". "Fertility is not restored, the underworld is not left behind." Weir calls Macpherson's vision "inescapably a tragic one." Recognition Macpherson won Poetry magazine's Levinson Prize, and the University of Western Ontario President's Medal, in 1957. She won the Governor General's Award for English language poetry or drama for The Boatman in 1958. She is acknowledged in Hans Jonas' famous study of Gnosticism for helping Jonas (for whom English was a second language) "in the English formulation of my thought". In popular culture Macpherson's poem "Ark Apprehensive" was set to music by Greg Kondusky for his 2010 Kites Overhead album, You are a secret, and you must never tell it."Kites Overhead," JukeboxAlive, JBANetwork. Web., Apr. 10, 2011. Publications Poetry *''Nineteen Poems.'' Deya, Mallorca, Spain: Seizin Press, 1952. *''O Earth Return.'' Toronto: Emblem Books, 1954. *''The Fisherman: A Book of Riddles.'' 1957."Jay Macpherson", NNDB.com, Web, Apr. 10, 2011 *''The Boatman, and other poems.'' Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1957. *''A Dry Light and the Dark Air.'' Toronto: Hawkshead Press, 1960. *''Welcoming Disaster: Poems, 1970-74.'' Toronto: Saannes Publications, 1974. *''Poems Twice Told: The Boatman & Welcoming Disaster.'' Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1981. Fiction *''The Four Ages of Man: The classical myths.'' Toronto: Macmillan, 1962; New York: St. Martin's Press, 1962. Non-fiction *''Pratt's Romantic Mythology: 'The Witches' Brew'.'' St. John's, NL: Memorial University, 1972. *''"Beauty and the Beast," and some relatives.'' Toronto: Toronto Public Library, 1974. *''The Spirit of Solitude: Conventions and continuities in late romance''. New Haven, CT, & London: Yale University Press, 1982. *''Biblical and Classical Myths: The mythological framework of Western culture'' (with Northrop Frye). Toronto & Buffalo, NY: University of Toronto Press, 2004. Except where noted, bibliographic information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Jay Macpherson, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Nov. 29, 2014. See also *List of Canadian poets *Timeline of Canadian poetry References *Berner, Audrey. "The 'Unicorn' Poems of Jay Macpherson." Journal of Canadian Poetry 3 (1980): 9-16. *"Comments (On the Practice of Alluding)." University of Toronto Quarterly 61.3 (1992): 381-390. *Keith, W.J. "Jay Macpherson's Welcoming Disaster: a Reconsideration." Canadian Poetry 36 (1995): 32-43. *Namjoshi, Suniti. "In the Whale's Belly: Jay Macpherson's Poetry."Canadian Literature 79 (1978): 54-59. *Reaney, James. "The Third-Eye: Macpherson's The Boatman." Canadian Literature 3 (1960): 23-34. References courtesy Brock University."Jay Macpherson, 1931-", Canadian Women Poets," BrockU.ca, Web, Apr. 10, 2011 Notes External links ;Poems *Jay Macpherson at the Poetry Foundation * Jay Macpherson: The Ark in Poetry, February 1957 * Macpherson, Jay (1931- ) - Biography & 9 poems (Abominable Snowman, The Day-Labourer, Eurynome, The Island, Old Age of the Teddy-bear, Poets & Muses, Some Ghosts & Some Ghouls, Substitutions, Very Sad Song) at Representative Poetry Online. ;Audio / video *Jay Macpherson at YouTube *"Ark Apprehensive" by Kites Overhead ;Books *Jay Macpherson at Amazon.com *Jay Macpherson at Amazon.ca ;About *Jay Macpherson at Canadian Women Poets *Jean Jay Macpherson in the Canadian Encyclopedia *Jay Macpherson at NNDB *Jay Macpherson, 1931-2012 at Quill & Quire *"[http://canadianpoetry.org/volumes/vol36/keith.html Jay Macpherson's Welcoming Disaster: A reconsideration]" by W.J. Keith Category:1931 births Category:2012 deaths Category:20th-century poets Category:Alumni of University College London Category:Anglo-Scots Category:Canadian people of Scottish descent Category:Canadian modernist poets Category:Canadian women writers Category:English immigrants to Canada Category:Governor General's Award winning poets Category:McGill University alumni Category:University of Toronto alumni Category:University of Toronto faculty Category:Women poets Category:Canadian poets Category:Poets Category:English-language poets Category:20th-century women writers Category:Modernist poets Category:Canadian academics Category:Mythopoeic writers